


No Light, No Light

by wolfwithwoodenteeth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, And he came back wrong, Dany is a little dark there at the end as well, Dark!Jon, F/M, Future Fic, I'm warning you: this is sad, Jon died trying to save her, POV Daenerys, Pregnancy, Sansa is dead, mention of miscarriage, this is dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12699795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfwithwoodenteeth/pseuds/wolfwithwoodenteeth
Summary: Daenerys watches him walk away from her, wondering how it has come to this, but she already knows the answer."Magic is a sword without a hilt," the Wildling Princess warned her. "There's no safe way to handle it. Leave him in peace."The voice of a woman long dead echoes inside her head. "Only death can pay for life."No, she insists. This time I did not know the price.She takes another look at her husband's quickly disappearing back. Because of her, he lives, more so than her Sun and Stars all those years ago, but inside he's still dead, only his obsession keeping him alive.





	No Light, No Light

**Author's Note:**

> This idea popped up in my mind and I had to write it down. 
> 
> Please read the tags first.

 

Dany hasn't been waiting for him, she's there to see Viserion approaching the Dragonpit. Drogon, her pride and joy, was lost in the fight against the Others. Rhaegal was forced to betray her, bewitched by the efforts of the Mummer's Dragon and the Crow's Eye.

Viserion is the only child left to her, but not for long now. Tentatively she lowers one hand to her belly, which has just started to swell into the slightest of curves.

She's going to tell him. She couldn't allow herself to hope, until this morning, when the maester confirmed that she was well over three moons gone and out of the danger zone.

She never got around to telling him the other times, except for the first one, but that was before...

She shakes her head. She will not think of that now. Jon has always wanted to hold a son of his own blood in his arms. Perhaps it will be enough. It needs to be enough.

He lands smoothly, lithely hopping off Viserion's neck, but his face is a thundercloud. He'll be in a foul mood, as he always is when he returns from one of his searches. 

She offers him a smile, one she hopes is full of expectation and hope.

He faces her, not really seeing her, he never does. "Nothing," he grunts.

She resists the urge to roll her eyes, but she purses her lips.  _Of course not._ She's been dead for four years. "Perhaps you'll have better luck next time," she mutters half-heartedly.

He glances up, his eyes already far away again, and the corner of his mouth turns up. "Perhaps," he agrees.

"I'm with child," she announces, beaming at him, deciding to forego any preamble.

He nods. "I know. I'm happy for you." He doesn't sound like it. 

 _What about you? Don't you feel anything?_ she wants to scream at him. She's not afraid of his outbursts, she's more dragon than he is, but she needs to mind the child growing inside her,  _their_ child. 

She watches him walk away from her, wondering how it has come to this, but she already knows the answer.

"Magic is a sword without a hilt," the Wildling Princess warned her. "There's no safe way to handle it. Leave him in peace."

Even the Red Priestess herself was reluctant, but Daenerys has always been persuasive.

The voice of a woman long dead echoes inside her head. "Only death can pay for life."

 _No,_ she insists. _This time I did not know the price._

Another child died in her womb that night and the man she loved returned from the dead once more. Or so she thought.

She takes another look at her husband's quickly disappearing back. Because of her, he lives, more so than her Sun and Stars all those years ago, but inside he's still dead, only his obsession keeping him alive.

He could hardly be called a man those first moons, more closely resembling the beasts that made up his blood than the lover she'd known. They brought him back to Winterfell.  _Home,_ he'd called it, even if he'd never truly had a place there. She'd been determined to build a new home for the two of them back then, and for the child she'd been so unexpectedly blessed with.

It was all _her_ fault. Why did she have to go out herself to convince the people of that village to seek refuge behind the walls of the castle? Why couldn't she have sent someone else? It's not that Dany doesn't understand. She would have done the same, but she would have flown there on Drogon, keeping herself safe in the process. But _she_ didn't.  _Sansa._ Her name slips through the defences she's built up in her mind.

She doesn't like to hear her name. She's forbidden the entire court to ever speak it again. It's not that she can't stand to see the look of pity in Tyrion's eyes. She could live with that. She's stronger than that. It's Jon who can't handle it. Whenever he hears someone utter her name, his face lights up and that spark of hope is reignited again. It wears him out, tears him down, and there's nothing she can do about it.

But her name still keeps falling from his lips like a prayer. _I need to find Sansa._   _I need to save my sister._ She never truly was. 

About sixteen moons ago, she thought she could finally put an end to it, when his other sister turned up, the one he'd been trying to save the first time he died, his true sister.  _I need to save my sister._ Surely that would be enough.

It wasn't. He seemed happy, for a while, happier than she'd seen him since he'd come back a second time, but it didn't last. Even Arya Stark couldn't distract him from his  _mission._

"Why hasn't anyone told him?" the little she-wolf demanded to know.

"We've tried," Dany explained to her. He still refuses to believe it. 

No one has ever been able to tell her exactly what happened. She only knows he was foolish enough to leap off Viserion's back and he was dealt a fatal blow before his men were able to reach him.

At times, she dreams about it every night: Sansa Stark, face pale and ghastly, her hair still a dazzling flame in death, her eyes a brighter blue than they had been in life, slowly staggering toward him. But the worst thing is the look of horror on his face, the way he just crumbles to his knees at the sight before him and doesn't even lift a finger when she pierces his heart.

After many nights of being visited by that nightmare, she lost her patience. "Sansa Stark is dead!" she shrieked at him. "She's dead and she's never coming back! You need to stop this nonsense now, Jon!"

His hand closed around her throat and her feet were lifted off the ground. He squeezed hard, his eyes black with fury, until his contorted face disappeared from her vision, her head dizzy as stars flickered into blackness. Tyrion told her it took four of her bloodriders to free her from his grasp and that it had only been a matter of moments.

 _It wasn't him,_ she kept telling herself,  _it wasn't him._ Some black beast had returned with him. This was the price she didn't know she'd have to pay.

He tried to explain it to her once, what it was like when he'd come back the first time.

_I was so lost. I wasn't supposed to be alive. I didn't belong anymore. I was afraid to die again. I wanted to die again. But I still needed to save Arya, so I focused on that. But it wasn't her. It was never her, it was all a lie. I was about to succumb to the darkness again when I heard that one hedge knight utter some rumour, that Sansa Stark had been seen in the Vale. Sansa, not Arya, not the sister I'd wanted to save, but better than I could have prayed for. When I found her, I found a purpose in life and slowly, I started to resemble the man I used to be. I could breathe again, I could fight my way out of the abyss._

Bile rose in Dany's throat at those words.  _She's his sister,_  she reminded herself.But she never truly was. 

Dany will never know the truth, but whatever there was between him and the girl who was not his sister,  _he loved me and he would have loved our child._

There's no love left in his heart now, but there's plenty of desire. He's rough and he always takes her from behind, the way a wolf mounts a bitch, but she doesn't mind. She can pretend it's true passion driving him to fuck her like that.

His seed has taken root inside her many times. She's named them all. Aegon, Nedgar, Rhaella, Rhaenys. She's lost them all. Rhaenys was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, her back folded open into barely sprouting wings. The others were still hidden away in little sacks of blood and slime, easily crushed between her fingertips.

She was up North when she discovered the last time before this one. "If it's a girl, I'll name her Lyanna," she told the Starks and their closest friends. "It's ill luck to name a babe before its second nameday," Val insisted.

This time, she'll follow the Wildling's advice. This time she'll give birth to a healthy babe, and Jon will return to her. And if he doesn't, she might have to let him go, and let _her_ have him. 


End file.
